US President-elect Donald Trump has formally announced Montana Congressman Ryan Zinke as his choice for secretary of the interior. In his single term as a Republican Congressman, Zinke pushed for an end to the moratorium on new coal mining on public lands, saying it had resulted in closed mines and job cuts. He also helped introduce a bill expanding tax credits for coal-burning power plants that capture and store their carbon emissions, saying he wanted to keep “coal, oil and gas communities viable for generations to come.” The Hill also covers the announcement. Meanwhile, environmental groups are still reacting to the appointment of ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson as secretary of state, reports the Guardian. The Sierra Club, the Union of Concerned Scientists and the Natural Resources Defense Council have variously described the decision as “unfathomable” and “an epic mistake” and accused the president-elect of creating “a government of, by, and for the oil and gas industry”. Another Guardian piece looks at how the appointment of Rick Perry as Trump’s pick for head of the Energy Department could be a “potentially encouraging sign for those alarmed by Trump’s nomination of climate deniers.” As governor of Texas, Perry presided over an explosion of wind power infrastructure in Texas, the Guardian says, giving him firsthand experience of how wind power can create jobs, make money for landowners and drive energy prices down for consumers. Michael Webber, deputy director of the Energy Institute at the University of Texas at Austin, describes Perry as “a climate-denying, fossil fuel-loving, pro-renewable energy enthusiast.” And finally, the Guardian also has an article summarising where all Trump’s cabinet nominees stand on climate change.

The UK government is in talks with Japanese officials about taking a direct stake of up to 25% in a new nuclear power station in north Wales. The multi-billion pound project to build two new reactors at an existing site at Wylfa, on Anglesey, is being developed by Hitachi. Chancellor Philip Hammond, who met business leaders and Japanese officials in Tokyo yesterday, said that Japanese government-related financing for the project could total £12bn but that negotiations were still on-going, reports the Telegraph. Any UK public finance for the power plant “would represent a major change in policy,” says the Financial Times: “The British government has for years resisted the idea of exposing taxpayers’ money to the heavy expense and high risks involved in building nuclear reactors.” People involved in the process said talks still “have a long way to go,” says the FT, and it was far from certain that a deal betwen the two governments would be reached.

Officials in 24 states have urged US President-elect Donald Trump to undo the Clean Power Plan – the centrepiece of President Barack Obama’s strategy to combat climate change. The law was designed to lower carbon emissions – mainly from coal-fired power plants by 2030 – to 32% below 2005 levels. The officials, led by Republican West Virginia Attorney General Patrick Morrisey, wrote to Trump with a four-part plan to unpick the plan and ensure a future president could not implement a similar policy in the future, reports The Hill. While repealing the law would take time, Morrisey and his colleagues argue that the plan is illegal and therefore Trump can issue an order to stop its implementation immediately: “The order should explain that it is the administration’s view that the rule is unlawful and that Environmental Protection Agency lacks authority to enforce it,” the letter says.

A catalogue of extreme weather events in 2015 – from heat waves in Australia to raging wildfires in Alaska – were likely influenced by human-caused climate change, a new peer-reviewed report says. In a special edition of the Bulletin of the American Meteorological Society, scientists analysed 30 extreme events of last year and found global warming had a hand in 24 of them. “It has to be measurable. It has to be detectable. There has to be evidence for it and that’s what these papers do,” said co-editor Stephanie Herring, as reported by the Associated Press for ABC News. The Conversation has an infographic that summarises the report’s findings.

Limiting access to federal research would do an “enormous disservice” to the US and the world according to former Nasa chief scientist. Concerned about access to climate data under a Donald Trump administration, many US scientists are rushing to copy information onto servers outside the control of the federal government. Continued access to data is in “everyone’s best interest,” says Dr Waleed Abdalati, who served as Nasa’s chief scientist for two years. He says it is too early to tell if scientists working on climate issues will have their access to data curtailed: “There would have to be a tremendous paradigm shift to actively take steps to make those data unavailable, and I think doing so would be an enormous disservice to the citizens of this country and to the world in general.” Elsewhere, Reuters gathers reactions from US climate scientists on how they could become isolated by a new administration that’s sceptical of climate change.

The impact of Donald Trump’s presidency on the environment may not be as catastrophic as some fear, says climate economist Lord Nicholas Stern. Speaking at an event in London, Stern said that it is difficult to predict what the Trump administration will do once in office, and that “the right thing to do in the circumstances is to pick up on the good things that people say.” Stern was also optimistic about the appointment of Rex Tillerson as secretary of state. In recent years in his position as CEO of ExxonMobil, Tillerson has come out in favour of a carbon tax to control emissions, said Stern, and the company has embraced mainstream climate science.

In a Perspectives article for the journal Science, professors Oppenheimer and Alley argue that coastal defense measures need to be flexible to account for the fast-moving science of sea level rise projections. While new research is constantly improving understanding of how the Earth’s massive ice sheets will change in a warmer world, “there are better options for policy-makers than to play wait-and-see,” they say. “Waiting another few decades to decide on specific adaptations in the hope that scientific predictions will become firmer may put completion [of coastal defenses] off until the last quarter of this century,” the scientists warn.

Scientists expect trees will shift towards higher elevations as global temperatures increase, but a new study says this may not hold true for two subalpine species in western North America. The results of the study suggest that the Engelmann spruce may not move to higher elevations as temperatures rise, and its lower-elevation boundary could recede upslope, thus shrinking its overall range. And the researchers also find that the hardy limber pine may shift upward in a warmer climate, but likely at the same slow pace as in today’s climate.